Page:Hopkinson Smith--armchair at the inn.djvu/62

 Eve got on very well without cutlets or broiled squab, and yet we must admit they raised a goodly race. I, myself, look forward to the time when nothing but vegetables and fruit, with cheese, milk, and eggs, will be eaten by men and women of refinement. When that time comes the butcher will go as entirely out of fashion as has the witch-burner and, in many parts of the world, the hangman.”

“But what are you going to do with Brierley, who can’t enjoy his morning coffee until he has bagged half a dozen ducks on his beloved marsh?” cried Louis, tossing the stump of his cigar into the fire.

“But Monsieur Brierley is half converted already, my dear Monsieur Louis; he told me the last time I was at his bungalow that he would never kill another deer. He was before his fireplace under the head of a doe at the time—one he had shot and had stuffed. Am I not right, Monsieur Brierley?” and Lemois inclined his head toward the hunter.

Brierley nodded in assent.

“Same old game,” muttered Louis. “Had his fun first.”

“I have been a cook all my life,” continued the undaunted Lemois, “and half the time